I was invited to speak at Hospitality Exchange this week in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The session called, 'Social Media goes Mobile' included speakers Guy Levine (pictured above) of Return on Digital and Brian Harte of Tourism Ireland.

I was asked to look at how mobiles will impact hotels and hospitality in general. Here's my presentation on The Future of Mobile & the Hospitality Industry:

Do you agree that all hotels should have free WiFi? Have you ever downloaded and used a hotel app? Would love to hear your thoughts.

PS - I just realised I'm on the cover of the conference programme along with Celebrity Chef Atul Kocjar & Food Critic Jay Rayner. Sweet!

Last week, I was honoured to be invited to host the 4th annual Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition in Amsterdam over two days at Picnic 2011.
 
Mobile Clicks is the world's largest startup competition and this year there were 7 finalists from the Netherlands, UK, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Turkey and Germany. The prize: a whopping €225,000 (third place receives €25,000, second place takes home €50,000 and first place walks away with €150,000).

Thankfully, I wasn't one of the judges because all the finalists did an amazing job presenting their pitches. The following day, the winners were revealed in front of hundreds of attendees and presented with fat cheques.

Third place (€25,000) went to Germany's Wunderlist, a productivity app that supports over-the-air sync and unlimited sharing for free.

Second place (€50,000 prize) went to the UK's ParcelGenie, an Instant Gift Messaging service that sends real gifts to friends and family via an email or a text message.

And the winner (€150,000) was Spain's FrogTek, which is an Android app that allows shopkeepers in the developing world to set up a financial system to run their business.
 

Congrats to all the winners and the finalists! Everyone had so much passion and energy and I wish all the startups loads of success.

Here's a video of the finalists & competition:

The lost 2005-06 bootleg series of the award-winning radio programme, Culture & Controversy co-hosted by Leila Makki and Arunima Kapoor. Remixed.

The lost 2005-06 bootleg series of the award-winning radio programme, Culture & Controversy co-hosted by Leila Makki and Arunima Kapoor. Remixed.

Check out this nice infographic from Alterian that makes a good point about companies making a web app rather than creating a custom app for each platform. Suprised cost was not also brought up as a deciding factor.

Be careful what stupid shit you say online as it can come back and bite you in the butt! Or keep you from getting that crappy corporate job cause your douche-bag employer can't spot sarcasm.

Tour of Angry Birds-themed headquarters of Rovio in Espoo, Finland. There's of course all the plush toys scattered around the office plus some never before seen merchandise, which I accidentally encountered. Woops!